Three Years Gone
by forensicpathologistninja
Summary: He hadn't seen her for three years, though he was blissfully unaware of this fact.


**Three Years Gone**

It had been just over three years since he'd last seen her, though this was a fact that the young handsome man in the diner was blissfully unaware of. Well, maybe not entirely unaware. She'd elicited a response in him; faint alarm bells going off in his head, accompanied by the even fainter smell of something burning – something sweet, like marshmallows. But he put it down to the cerebral trauma he'd suffered a few years before, apparently a bad car wreck.

He didn't remember anything of his life before waking up in a hospital bed in Colorado, with no fingerprints and a face too damaged for recognition software. A kind nurse had taken him home, and he'd helped her and her husband with work around their house, in return getting a place to stay and food to eat. They'd said it was just until he started to remember, but as the weeks turned into months, they'd become something of a family, and Luke had stopped trying to catch the memories that sometimes flittered across his mind. He didn't know who he was before, but now he was Lucas Carroll, the adopted son of Edith and Mike Carroll, and a journalism major at UCLA.

They couldn't be certain, but they'd judged him to be about 22 years old, and should have graduated already, but he'd had to take a year off after the accident.

The accident. That's what they called it. Presumably a horrendous car crash, but all Luke could remember were screams and flashed of bloodied blond hair. After that, there was nothing, and no one knew who had found him, or what condition he'd been in at the time. He'd just been dropped off at a trauma center in Colorado by some unknown Samaritan, and everything before that was a mystery.

"Can I help you?" a voice cut through his reverie, and he started. A kind older woman stood by his table. Joyce, if her nametag was any indication.

Lucas nodded. "That girl. What's her name?"

"Who?" the woman followed his gaze. "Stacy? She's the new girl. Well, not really new. Been working here for near two years now, but she's as new as we see 'em here. Why? You fancy her? Cause we been trying to hook her up for months, but she just don't seem interested. Thinks she's not pretty enough cause of her arm. But you prove her wrong, there's a good boy."

Then the woman's eyes narrowed. "Even if you don't think she's pretty, you hear? You'd better talk nice and sweet when she comes over here to take your order."

Lucas gulped, nodded. He wasn't scared of the woman in front of him, but in his mind's eye he could vaguely see the outline of Stacy, her shoulders slumped as she sobbed on the floor, and there was nothing he could do about it. But then she was approaching him, and he shook the thoughts off.

"You requested me?" she said, somewhat dryly.

"I did. You remind me of someone," spilled from his lips, him unable to keep it in any longer.

He saw the breath catch in her throat, and her face paled. "Who?" she breathed.

The visible disappointment on her face when he shook his head made him want to rush to take it back.

"Sorry," he answered, ashamed of his excuse for the first time in three years. "I was in an accident. I don't remember a lot."

The look on her face at _that_ admission set him reeling. She looked like she'd seen a ghost, like she wanted to run or vomit or both. Then she gathered her composure and forced a laugh.

"Oh. Okay. Well, what can I get you –"

"Lucas," he responded. "That's what they call me now."

"Well," and she looked like she was holding back tears, "What can I get you, Lucas?" the name sounded hollow on her lips.

"I think I'm in love with you." He suddenly blurted. So much for keeping it in the shallow end.

For a long moment, she was silent. Then –

"You shouldn't be." And those were definitely tears he saw in her eyes.

"Why not?"

"Because I'm not a very good person. Pretty horrible, in fact."

"Well now, you can't be that-"

"What's my name?" She interrupted him.

"Stacy, it says so on your name tag, genius."

She smiled sadly. "Yeah… because that's all my fault."

"Wait! What's all your fault?" he called, but she was already gone.

**90909**

_"I thought our story was epic, y'know."_

_"Epic? How?"_

_"Spanning years and continents, ruined lives and bloodshed. Epic."_

Lucas woke from the dream as he always did, confused and drenched in sweat. For as long as he could remember (which, granted, wasn't long) he'd had dreams of this same faceless blond pixie. Mostly they were more ominous than that last one, but he'd take a break where he could get it.

Looking at his clock, he realized it was well past time for him to go to class, so he decided to play hooky. Maybe he'd go back to the diner and have lunch with another pretty little blond.

**90909**

"Okay, okay, yuk it up. What's the craziest thing you've ever done?" he asked. It had taken him a while, but he'd convinced Stacy to play a round of twenty questions with him, and he'd been surprised to find his answers seemed to amuse her and sadden her all at once.

"Well," she sighed, and a glint came to her eyes. "Once, I planted a bong in someone's locker. On the day I knew it would be checked by the local leos."

He guffawed and tried to ignore the niggling sensation at the back of his mind.

"And how did that turn out for you?" he asked.

She frowned. "Hey now, first, it would be my question. Second, this round is over."

"Oh, c'mon. You look like this is the most fun you've had in forever. One more round."

She bit her lip nervously, then nodded. "I guess one more couldn't hurt."

**90909**

They played all afternoon, and over the course of a few hours, he learned that she was from California, her father had been a sheriff, and then a PI, before he was killed, and she _definitely_ had a thing for him. But that last one wasn't something he gathered by her answers.

"So… what about your dad?" she asked, and was that hesitation in her voice? How could she possibly know the feelings that word evoked?

But he went with the easy answer, launching into a long explanation about Mike, and what he did for a living.

When he was finished explaining, she smiled. "Your turn."

"Yeah. My turn. What happened to your arm?"

And suddenly it wasn't a lighthearted game between two friends anymore. Her face turned to stone before him, and she shook her head even as memories played at his senses.

_"No! No, please don't, Logan!"_

"Logan," he breathed.

_"Watch this, pretty boy. This is what happens when you don't pay your debts."_

_"NO! OW, stop!"_

_"Stop it, you're hurting her!"_

_"Guess you should have paid what you owed, pretty boy."_

Her soft voice brought him back to the present. "A very bad man hurt it."

"The same bad man who killed your father?"

Her eyes turned sad, and he longed to hold her, but he could not, as the memories of their shared past held him in a vice grip.

_"Veronica, no!"_

_A hand jerked him back, away from her and the greasy man who manhandled her into a harness as she fought and screamed._

"Veronica… he… pushed you…"

Her eyes flashed, and she gulped back tears.

And then, she stood and fled the diner, not bothering to look back.

She didn't have to. He couldn't follow, his body turned to stone as the memories coursed painfully through him.

_The evil man, the one they called Dmitry, grinned sadistically as he pushed Veronica forward, and now Logan could see she was attached to a strong bungee cord, and the breath caught in his throat. He could already see where this was going, and opened his mouth to warn her, of what, he wasn't quite sure, but years later he'd look back and think that if he'd yelled sooner, a lot of pain could have been avoided._

_But a knee to his groin prevented that, and soon he watched as she was pushed over the railing, and his stomach jumped to his throat as he watched her arm – the one that hadn't already been broken – go up over her head to brace her landing._

_It was the worst thing she could have done. The cord would have kept her from hitting the ground. But it wasn't long enough to account for the added foot, and he heard her ear-splitting scream as her arm shattered against the rocks below._

_"Well, looks like no one ever taught your little girlfriend how to bungee jump, son," Dmitry's oily voice slicked over Logan's sweaty body, filling him with dread and nausea._

_"But… well, bad things happen when I don't get what people promise me. Would you like to see our webcam of her father? Quite the pair, those two, but I think he's beginning to get the picture."_

_He didn't want to. Everything in him screamed to refrain from asking, but he couldn't stop the words from falling past his lips._

_"What picture?"_

_"The one where I get revenge. You know where my money is. And you'll tell me where to find it, or I'll take yours. And taking your money is so much harder than you giving me my money. I mean, there's all these witnesses –"_

_"NO! Please, if it's money you want, I'll give you all of it. Just let them go."_

_From the monitor in front of him, he heard a garbled scream, and then a thump, and Dmitry tsked._

_"Oh no. It seems you should have looked before you opened your mouth. Gorya, I don't think that's what Mr. Echolls was referring to when he said that. Oh well, no matter. Clean up the blood before you leave, son."_

_And Logan couldn't bring himself to look, but he knew without a doubt that Keith Mars was dead._

_Then there was a pain in his head, and the next thing he knew, he was waking up in Colorado without a name or any memory save for nightmares to tell him who he'd been for the past 19 years._

As the memory of their last meeting came back to him, he stood and chased after the pretty little blond with the sad blue eyes. He cornered her in the bathroom, and he was far too preoccupied with thoughts of her to care about modesty.

She stood, good arm held out, trying to hold him away from her, as her chest heaved with effort. He could see the tears in her eyes, and everything that he hadn't known before became clear.

_"I think I'm in love with you."_

_"You shouldn't be."_

_"Why not?"_

_"What's my name?"_

_"Stacy, it says so on your name tag, genius."_

_"Yeah… because that's all my fault."_

"Veronica," he whispered after a long while. His next words proved his pause was not for lack of memory, but for choking on tears. "It wasn't your fault."

And for that moment, he just held her, explaining brokenly about his father's large debt to the Sorokin's. Later would be the time for her to tell him about the years she spent dead inside, thinking it was her fault her father and Logan were dead. About how she'd turned to drugs and alcohol, about how she'd come home one night to find her mother's mutilated body on her sofa, because it still wasn't over.

Right now was his turn to explain.

That everything happened to them because they were still paying for the sins of his father.

"It was the money, Ronica. Not the fight in the cafeteria or you stealing the hard drive. It was never your fault," he breathed against her hair, and she sobbed as she snaked her good arm around his waist.

She hugged him as tightly as she dared, and for the first time in more than three years, Logan Echolls felt like he was home.


End file.
